Another weird story.

I went to a speed dating event in fall of 2008 — a “Cougar” speed dating event — it turned out to be a lot of Plain Janes and heavyset and black and Asian women in their 30′s and 40′s and very few men.

The first woman I was matched with was an angular, slightly uptight woman in her mid- 40′s. Think Meryl Streep’s odd sister. Hair up or pulled back (not a good look for a dating event). Her name was the name of a very popular nonsensical children’s song in the 60′s — like “Mahna Mahna Ma.” Apparently her older sister couldn’t stop singing the song and kept pointing to her — as a newborn — and her parents just named her “Mahna.” It was the Sixties and it sounded vaguely exotic so they went for it.

I happened to know the daughter of the guy who wrote the song she was named after and mentioned it straight away which got her attention.

She was an odd bird, this woman — an artist who made weird things out of balsa wood and painted them. Recently divorced, she was living with her sister and their kids. There was something vaguely attractive about her even though her features were bird-like — she was pretty witty which was a nice change.

Then our 3 or 4 minutes were up and the speed dating went on. When it was over, we ended up walking out together and she was 5’10 (something you don’t notice at speed dating where all the women remain seated.). I walked her to her car. She awkwardly gave me her number.

We made a date. She meets me for coffee across the street and wow — she looked amazing — her hair was down, she was wearing a tight white stretchy shirt and was unusually busty — something I hadn’t noticed before. She was still a little weird — I couldn’t put my finger on it — definately some depression in her history (I think we both might have bonded over that)…

I thought about it for a day and then sent her an e-mail. I was attracted to her, but she seemed weird and our rhythms seemed off. But I wanted to fool around with her. So, I tried something that strangely worked before — I sent her e-mail that said I was attracted to her, but felt we weren’t boyfriend/girlfriend material, but still strongly drawn to her and didn’t know where she was in her life and didn’t mean to offend her, but if she wanted to “explore” that purely physical attraction, I was game.

She e-mailed me back — she was in!

We made a date for her to come over my apartment. Here’s where it all went wrong.

She shows up, hair pulled back or up, wearing a smells-slightly-musty old lady sweater. As soon as she came in I felt there was something wrong. She sits on the couch, I ask her if she wants some wine? She says yes, I go into the fridge a take out a bottle of white.

I hold it out to her and ask if white is OK.

Her response: “Is that the wine you use to get women drunk with?”

You know those stories where a guy is on a date with a woman and she’s willing / about to sleep with him and then he says something so incredibly stupid, her libido takes a nose drive and she is done, done, done. All her good feelings and desire for sex just gets wiped clean like a shaken Etch-A-Sketch? Well, that’s exactly how I felt. It just flew out of me. I totally got that.

“Um, no….it’s the wine I cook with.”

We sit on the sofa and she moves to the OPPOSITE END of my 8 foot couch and we watch the documentary “King of Kong.” She’s being really prickly, she’s like a few feet away from me, I don’t know what’s going on, so I figure I’ll let her drink her wine to come off the ceiling.

About 20 minutes in, she pops: “Hey! I don’t get what’s going on here — you invited me over to fool around and we are just watching this movie!”

Kinda expecting this, I said very calmly: “Look, I don’t know what’s going on either — you’re sitting on the other end of the couch, you made that crack about me getting women drunk — you don’t seem like you want to be here at all.”

She acknowledged this — said she was nervous, said she wanted to be there.

I said, okay, well, let’s kiss and see what happens.

We are standing up at this point and I kiss her — and NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. Plus I got a wiff of that sweater.

“I’m sorry, I’m not feeling it” I said or something like that and she literally fled my apartment. Like within seconds of me saying that.

I’m not proud of all this, but I think this woman, conciously or unconciously sabotaged our make out session. The hair, the sweater, the wine crack, the couch distance. I mean, if you were going over someone’s home to specifically sexually “explore” with them, wouldn’t you dress a little sexy? Act a little sexy?

Luckily, I don’t hear that 60′s kid song much.

It was 1996. I was 26. I hadn’t been laid in maybe two years. I was isolating a lot and regressing a little. Okay, maybe a lot. I started collecting autographs again — something I hadn’t done since I was 14 or so.

And I began to focus on autographs of pin-ups from the 50′s and 60′s. I bought a box of pin up trading cards and with this 10 CD collection of the White Pages OF THE ENTIRE U.S., I began to write them for their signatures. I even managed to track down Bettie Page’s brother who passed along my autograph request and then months later, I got a handwritten letter from Bettie (still in hiding, maybe only 4 years out of a California nut house) and later that year, a Xmas card from her where she scribbled “May God Bless You Real Good.”

As I write this, I know it sounds strange — to have a ‘pin-up’ autograph hobby when most of my peers were in real relationships and were even moving in with each other or getting engaged. The Internet was still in its infancy and my social skills were still shitty — I had no idea how to pick up a girl, get a 2nd date, get a girl in bed, even kiss a girl after a date. My only 2nd girlfriend broke up with me about two years earlier.

Right around this time, a buddy of mine from high school rang me and said he was now in NYC and he just got engaged (see?). I didn’t know him that well, but he was the twin brother of one of my best friends in HS. Let me describe them both — shaped like pears, Jew-fro hair that was going by early 20′s, bad teeth, bad skin. Goatees. Sweet guys though. He says he wants to have lunch or drinks and wants me to me his fiancé.

As the day grew closer, I remember thinking, “Wow, I can’t imagine what kind of girl would hook up with this guy — maybe a nerdy, bookish girl. Good they found each other.” Minutes before I remember thinking, “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

When I met them at a bar at a booth in the back, I experienced one of the great shocks of my life (to this day). His fiancé was a DEAD RINGER FOR ANN-MARGRET. I don’t mean, she kinda, sorta looked like her — it was like Ann Margret had stepped out of “Viva Las Vegas” screening and into 1996. Long wavy red hair and everything. (The picture above is the closest picture I found of A.M. that looked like this girl Karen.)

Oh, and her rack was enormous. Crazy big. But she was thin in the waist. Like Christina Hendrix from “Mad Men.” It was kinda nutty. Most women aren’t built like 1970′s Playboy centerfolds.

Ann Margret was my favorite pin up of that time — she was in that little pack of cards I had and she was the one who shot me into puberty at about 13 during a replay of “Viva Las Vegas” on TV.

During that evening, I did my best to contain the small nervous breakdown I was having. Karen looked at me like she knew every thought I ever had. She knew I was a wreck because of her. She recognized that look I had and probably had seen it from men every day since she turned 12.

After that night, I called him and asked him “How the fuck did you get a girl like that?” He acknowledged how crazy it was.

The story: She was in his grad school class. He had a crush on her (of course). She was engaged. Next semester, she’s gone. He calls the # he has for her. Disconnected. He goes to his buddy who works in admissions. Asks for her parents #. The guy won’t give it. He says its a Federal offense. My buddy grabs him and says, ‘I’m going to marry that girl and if you don’t give me her number, it going to mess the whole thing up.” He gets the parents #. Turns out, her and the boyfriend broke up and she moved back home. They become best friends. He moves to NYC and she visits. Then, in the middle of the night, having been crashing on the couch, she strips off her clothes and gets in bed with him. And now they are in engaged.

His story almost sounded like a Penthouse letter it was so unbelievable.

Now long after, they came to a birthday party I had at my apartment. She showed up in A WHITE TRANSLUCENT DRESS. It don’t remember if she was wearing a bra, but even if she was, you could see right through it. Even a few of my friends took me aside and commented on ‘the sex kitten’ in my house.

She really, really did not like me. I don’t know if it was because she could see the lust for her in my eyes or just my personality. Or both.

I went to their wedding in Philly. Took the train down. In the receiving line, when I handed her my gift, she practically scowled at me.

***

They eventually divorced. My buddy hinted that she really screwed him — something about an auto loan. He got remarried, has kids.

I asked him recently, “Hey remember Karen, your first wife?”

“Yeah…?”

“She really hated me, didn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“No clue.”

Over the years, he kinda sidestepped any mention of her. I think he got really hurt. I suspect she was just using him as a stepping stone. I mean, he was in a career that didn’t make a lot of money (education), but it seems she only got sexually interested in him when he moved to NYC. Maybe she was using him as a way to get to NYC (she was an actress) and maybe some alimony to live on in the future. She scared me a bit, but man, was she a knockout.

“He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.
Man and Superman (1903) “Maxims for Revolutionists”
George Bernard Shaw

I live in L.A. and out here is a handful of ‘dating experts’ and/or matchmakers who are perpetually single — all women — who have (to my knowledge) never been married (one is in her mid-50′s), never seem to have a boyfriend or even dating someone.

But, lo and behold, they’ve got self-published books, internet radio shows, blogs, YouTube videos, e-newsletters, Facebook pages — they’ve got whole cottage industries. That 50-something charges $500 for a consult.

I actually saw her on Match and clicked on her profile — and it was AWFUL — really short, full of cliches — “I work hard, I play harder, equally comfortable in a blah blah blah as I am in shoobie doobie doo”, only a couple of “headshot-y” pictures. My jaw almost dropped — this is a woman who seems to make a living doing this? And taking money to write people’s profiles? I once saw her on a dating panel saying how she was “engaged to” 5X from dating online.

I had a run-in/short lived friendship with a matchmaker/dating ‘expert’ with an internet radio show who matched me up once for a client of hers and who later lambasted my looks on her show (“He thinks he’s an 8, but he’s probably less than a 6″). Once on her show she recounted a conversation with her therapist about the therapist suggesting she surrounds herself with animals (like 5 dogs, etc.) to guard her from intimacy, from a date longer than 30 minutes (“I gotta get back to the dogs”) from a man’s love, a potential relationship — and she agreed! She also bragged about about a short lived affair with a moderately popular skanky Rock Star from 15 years earlier. (it just sounded like they went out / he had sex with her a couple times). Healthy.

Even the Millionaire Matchmaker Patti Stanger started to look a little dubious after the first couple seasons of the show until a long term boyfriend/finance Andy magically appeared (looking quite uncomfortable and who strangely disappeared at end of that season [the official reason -- at 50, Patti says she now wants kids and Andy doesn't / didn't -- whaaaaaaaaaaaaatttt? -- I think the guy was a plant and would love for anyone to find a picture of the two together at a party or event before that season])

I mean, I’m not saying, they have to be married, but at least be dating SOMEONE. You claim to be an ‘expert’, but in one of the largest cities in the US, you can’t find anyone to have more than 3 dates with? You can’t find decent guy? Granted, I’ve had my troubles, but I’m not charging $500 for a consult or claiming to be an ‘expert’. Isn’t dating a means to an end? The purpose isn’t to become to the best dater or have the greatest profile, is it? Isn’t it to MEET and BE WITH someone?